Share & Add Link Mash-ups Are Driving Modern Design

Written by Gregory Milby | Saturday, February 13th, 2010
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There seems to be a crescendo of services popping up. Most of the services seem to be outwardly oriented, but a few user-centric applications are also starting to surface. I don’t think anyone can deny that social networking has impacted webdesign, and the rising flood of api’s are making it easier than ever to include one of these tools, and give a designer/site admin more time to dedicate to the website without investing time into “keeping up with the social networking Jones’s”
The one that I’m using on my sites is, “Add This”, but there is an emerging tide of these type of sharing link/mini blogging/social networking web-centric applications springing up everyday.

Add This offers statistical data so you can track how many times your site  was referred using their tool, but you will have to sign up for an account to be able to use that feature… After all, they need to know who to give the tally to :)

The list of networking sites seems to be growing at an unbelievable rate, and it’s great that someone is keeping up with all the js/api links that can connect stories or web items to their ‘circle of friends’ or colleagues.

Another one that has caught my attention is , “Share This“.  Share this seems to have a few more dynamic elements – a smoother presentation, but the number of services it can ‘share to’ are probably equal to any other like-service. One thing that seperates Share This apart is the application method – you’re able to literally download the plugin within a ‘format’ (e.g. wordpress, typePad, or generic script for any regular coding website).

As mentioned earlier, there are a few user-centric web applications starting to come to the forefront. One of the most significant is Threadsy.  At first I wasn’t sold on the all-in-one web tool idea, but after using it for a month, it’s become an essential tool.  It’s so easy to twitter, and if it’s appropriate, I can simultaneously post to Facebook.  It keeps all my email in one place (my tens of throw away/ sole-purpose email addresses [that i would never check otherwise?]).  The irony is I like Threadsy for the very reasons that I thought I would ever like an application like this… It has a vertical bar (as small as I want it to be) that can show me my twitter account/facebook notices without getting an email… if something scrolls by & I happen to want to reply – it’s a matter of clicking a button after typing my response.  At any given time, I used to have up to 20 browser window/tabs open. With Threadsy, it’s reduced to 5.

Regardless which one of these mash-up tools you use, be sure to share your findings in the comments.  We appreciate the comments and participation.

Thanks,

Greg

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15 Best Of The Best Windows 7 Tips & Tricks

Written by Gregory Milby | Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
Windows 7 has even won the hearts of the opensource crowd (tough bunch to please), and getting the most out of this new version of Windows seems to be something almost everyone is interested in:
Windows 7 may be Microsoft’s most anticipated product ever. It builds on Windows Vista’s positives, and eliminates many of that OS’s negatives. It adds new functionality, too – together in a non-piggish/process UN-intensive package.
1. A useful way to track problems… imagine that?  Record Problems. The Problem Steps Recorder (PSR) is a great new feature that helps in troubleshooting a system (see Figure 1). At times, Remote Assistance may not be possible. However, if a person types psr in their Instant Search, it will launch the recorder. Now they can perform the actions needed to recreate the problem and each click will record the screen and the step. They can even add comments. Once complete, the PSR compiles the whole thing into an MHTML file and zips it up so that it can be e-mailed for analysis to the network admin (or family problem solver, depending on how it’s being used).

Figure 1 The Problem Steps Recorder dramatically speeds up troubleshooting. (Click the image for a larger view)
2. Make Training Videos. Use a tool like Camtasia to record short, two to three minute video tutorials to help your users find relocated features, operate the new Taskbar and so forth.  Animations are now easily implemented into a web environment with any variety of html/editor tools.
3. “UPGRADES ARE BAD”.  Consider Clean Installs. Even when upgrading Windows Vista machines, consider a clean install rather than an in-place upgrade. Yes, it’s more hassle, but it’ll produce a more trouble-free computer in the long run.

Read the rest of 15 Best Of The Best Windows 7 Tips & Tricks »

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Resize An Existing .vdi Virtualbox Image – EASILY!

Written by Gregory Milby | Friday, November 20th, 2009
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Resize An Existing .vdi Virtualbox Image – EASILY!

Start off by creating a fresh new drive of the size you’re after using the VirtualBox user interface. Then, locate both the your old, smaller HD and the new, larger one and run the following command:

VBoxManage clonehd --existing oldhd.vdi newhd.vdi

After some progress indicators ahve come and gone your HD should have been cloned to the larger one. You now need to use some software to expand your drive partition into the new space. Vista and W7 have this feature built in to Disk Management, or you could use something like GParted. I have never had luck with the integrated windows disk management tools, so I opted to use a free product called EASEUS PARTITION MASTER – home edition:

resizer_toolThis tool was easy to install directly into the new vdi image.  Walked through the wizard after clicking on “Resize” – it rebooted itself and resized the partition without a fuss.

The command line entries for running the VirtualBox commands:

gmilby@gmilby-ubuntu64:~/.VirtualBox/HardDisks$ ls
XP_10GIG.vdi  xp.vdi
gmilby@gmilby-ubuntu64:~/.VirtualBox/HardDisks$ ls -l
total 6042484
-rw——- 1 gmilby gmilby      61952 2009-11-20 08:15 XP_10GIG.vdi
-rw——- 1 gmilby gmilby 6181380608 2009-11-20 07:56 xp.vdi
gmilby@gmilby-ubuntu64:~/.VirtualBox/HardDisks$ VBoxManage clonehd –existing xp.vdi XP_10GIG.vdi
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.0.12
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

0%…10%…20%…30%…40%…50%…60%…70%…80%…90%…100%
Clone hard disk created in format ‘VDI’. UUID: 1366bb7f-e827-41de-90ce-763e82309f26
gmilby@gmilby-ubuntu64:~/.VirtualBox/HardDisks$

Resized .vdi image:
vdi_resized


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